As regards Ling, she also struggled to tell a personally significant story

facing her ESL class. Although she had lots of trouble to express herself in
English, her classmates helped her, as they were not only interested in her
story, but also felt identified and moved by it. This led her to feel relaxed,
comfortable, understood and respected, making her experience not
traumatic at all. One day at the ESL class, Ling, who was known as the
‘Quiet One’ for being so silent, asked to speak in front of the class, with
certain urgency. Like María, she wanted to tell a distressing story. Even
though they were all sharing their summer plans, she started to tell a
story from her homeland. It had taken place back in China, when Ling was
a little girl. Ling made a terrible effort to put her thoughts into words, but
her English was too slow and she found it extremely difficult to express
her ideas; she had serious problems as regards grammar and
pronunciation. As Ling strained to tell the events that took place in her
story, all her classmates helped her with the vocabulary and verb tenses.
When she could not find the correct word to describe her Chinese teacher,
Charlene, one of her classmates, cooperated by saying the word
“handsome “,that was what Ling was trying to refer to. Moreover, María
corrected a grammar mistake when Ling said “He have a sister go to Hong
Kong who have many many money”. Furthermore, Ling´s classmates were
truly interested in what she had to say. They were constantly contributing
to her story and asking questions. When Ling told her class about her
government´s attitude towards rich people at the time the story took
place, Carlos, another classmate, said that the government in his country
was “bad to you if you got small house, no money”. As opposed to the
audience that María had to confront, Ling´s classmates and teacher hardly
interrupted her or forced her to speak. They only spoke when they
noticed that Ling could not find the exact words or when she seemed to be
confused with the language. Cheryl, her teacher, only talked when Ling
mispronounced the word “hit”. In the context of this constructive
atmosphere, Ling felt free to speak and slowly told her story, with the help
and support of her classmates who were listening to her very carefully.
Ling´s classmates felt profoundly identified with her story, too. When she
told her class with tears in her eyes that her Chinese teacher had been
ruthlessly killed, all her classmates cried in unison. They were sincerely
sympathetic and proved to be really touched by her pitiful story. Thanks
to her classmates´ valuable aid, Ling could tell her traumatic and difficult
story in a friendly and caring environment. Because of the audience´s
eagerness, interest and help, Ling must have felt supported, understood
and respected, gaining more and more confidence as she went further in
her story; not at all as María, who felt completely disheartened after she
had told her own anecdote.